


We Drift Like Worried Fire

by InFlagranteDestiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Complete, Domestic Dean Winchester, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Long, M/M, Near Future, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:25:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFlagranteDestiel/pseuds/InFlagranteDestiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester has it all. He's settled into the Men of Letters bunker with Cas and Sam. He's leading a comparatively quiet life and enjoying it more than he ever thought he would. But during what should be a routine hunt in Missouri, he comes to realize he needs to start making some choices about what's really important to him. Part domestic character study, part case fic, this is Dean at a critical moment as a hunter, a partner, and a brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this before Season 9 began, so obviously certain things about a couple character arcs changed wildly during the season which rendered this a near-future AU.

The floor was clean. It had to be. He was sure of it. Dean stood in the doorway of the kitchen, holding onto the mop handle like it was a wizard’s staff, examining his work. He focused on the corners, then shifted his gaze to take in the whole picture. Four years living there, and he still didn’t know what constituted clean or not. 

A twinge in his back told him it was time to grab a beer and park himself in his favorite armchair. He was nearing forty, a milestone he never thought he’d see, and it showed in moments like this. Spikes of pain in his lower back; popping knees; stiff, swollen knuckles. 

Cas appeared behind him in the doorway, that soft _whoosh_ that was both familiar and bracing. 

“I could have cleaned the floor in the literal blink of an eye.” 

Dean spun around, clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a lousy houseboy. Want to have a beer with me anyway?” 

He nodded solemnly before crouching down and dipping his finger into the bucket of dirty water. In an instant, the murky slop disappeared. “A beer sounds excellent.” 

Cas trailed him to the fridge, hovering as Dean pulled out two icy bottles. That fridge probably ran on magic; it kept Dean’s beer exactly the right temperature. 

“I am not a boy and this is not a house,” Cas observed. 

Good ol’ Cas. Still weird after all these years. Dean handed him his beer and he perched on one of the chairs on the other end of the kitchen. He had long since shed his trench coat and cheap suit combo, dressing instead in a pair of jeans, worn t-shirt, and hoodie. The overall effect was deceptively casual. He had gotten his grace back good and proper after the Metatron debacle a few years ago, but there was something about his few weeks of being human that had stuck. He carried himself differently, walked like he was suddenly more comfortable in his vessel. 

“You want a sandwich?” Dean asked. 

“I still don’t need to eat, remember?” Dean couldn’t tell if there was a little comma of a smile at the corner of Cas’ mouth, or if it was just a trick of the light. 

“I didn’t ask if you _needed_ a sandwich.”

Yeah, it was definitely a smile, always a nice addition to Cas’ demeanor. “Sure, okay.” Still, though, that gravelly voice too big for his body – it made everything sound like an incantation. 

Cas’ eyes followed Dean’s every move as he bustled about the kitchen, getting their sandwiches together. 

“I think this makes _you_ the houseboy,” Cas said. 

“Can I be the houseboy if the house belongs to me?” 

“I believe technically, we’re all squatters, so that right there throws the rulebook out the window.” 

He finished the sandwiches, and set Cas’ in front of him. He peered at it before smiling up at Dean. He liked a good half-inch of iceberg lettuce on his sandwiches, for reasons unknown, and Dean never forgot, even though he could count on one hand how many sandwiches he had made for Cas over the years. 

Cas tipped his face up and snagged Dean in a sloppy kiss. “Thanks for making me a sandwich, even though I don’t need it and I didn’t help you clean.” 

He ran his hand through Cas’ hair and sat across the table from him. He had made his own sandwich with far more meat and cheese and much less lettuce. Iceberg, of all the things. He still wasn’t a fan of eating foliage, but he had learned over his years of domesticity that if one was going to bother with it, one might as well pick a classy lettuce like romaine. Ah, well. Dean himself was barely a civilized human; it was far too much to ask the same of Cas. 

“I was reading the news on the internet,” Cas said. 

“Legit news, or Reddit news?” 

“Legit. Come on Dean, I know how this works by now.” 

“Sorry, sorry. Go on. Anything interesting?” 

“Yeah, possible poltergeist in Blue Earth, Missouri. A few people have met sticky ends there in the past few weeks.” 

Dean raised his eyebrows and thought about it through a mouthful of sandwich. They hadn’t been on a hunt in a while. Sam had been working a construction job and Dean had done some engine work for people around town. 

“Cool, we can do some more research when Sammy gets back.” 

“You know, Dean, your thirty-five-year-old brother who is almost seven feet tall might take some exception to you using a diminutive of his name.” 

“And some almost-mumble-mumble-year-old hunter you’ve been fucking for several years might take some exception to nitpicking, which might result in withholding of usual sexual favors.” 

“If you withhold sex from me, you withhold sex from yourself.” That smile was far too smug for Dean’s liking, even though he had to privately admit to himself and himself alone that he found it sexier than all get-out when Cas challenged him and behaved like a general pain in the ass.

“Dammit,” Dean said. “Game set match, motherfucker.” 

“I’ll be sure to note it in my scorebook.” He finished his sandwich, dusted crumbs from his hands. 

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hall, and then Sam’s voice rang out, calling a hurried but friendly hello. He blew into the kitchen, pulled out a burrito from the freezer and tossed it into the microwave. He poured a glass of orange juice and crashed down into one of the chairs. 

His boots were dusty and his hands bore the marks of working construction – fingernails worn down and dirty, dry patches on the edges of his fingers. He’d been doing some contract work, restoring a building downtown. 

“Might be a poltergeist in Blue Earth,” Dean said. 

Sam nodded. “All right.” 

“Research party later?” 

The microwave dinged and Sam got up, retrieved his burrito. He ate it standing against the counter, juggling it as best he could and keeping one step ahead of the molten bean goo that rolled down the side. 

“Maybe. I can’t go, though. We’re wrapping up the downtown job and Ralph has another contract for a roofing gig. He asked me to help him with it.” 

“Hey, that’s great,” Dean said, and he meant it. Still, there was a part of him that cringed a little when Sam begged out of actual hunting. He’d research until he was punchy and wide-eyed, but more and more, he let Cas and Dean do the actual hunting. He was happy for Sam, happy he was making a life for himself that didn’t revolve around family or the family business, but it stung nonetheless. He’d long ago stopped trying to achieve rationality when it came to his brother.

Cas’ foot bumped his under the table and he snuck a quick smile at him while Sam was concentrating on his burrito. He knew, he always knew. 

“Anyway, Garth texted me. He’s passing through, wondered about staying a couple nights. Maybe he’d want to look into the Blue Earth thing.” 

“Garth is our friend now?” 

Sam cocked his head and pursed his lips. “Yeah, Dean, he’s our friend. He’s one of the only friends we have that isn’t six feet under.”

Dean hated to admit it, but Sam was right. And Garth, well, as far as friends went, he was all right. A little touchy-feely for Dean’s taste, but he supposed that was something he could put up with. 

“Yeah, all right,” Dean said, shoving the last bit of sandwich in his face.

“Cas?” Sam asked. 

“I like Garth. His exuberance is very much in line with the music of the Spheres.” 

“Whatever the fuck that means,” Sam said, raising his glass of orange juice in salute. 

Sam drained his glass, rinsed it out, put it on the dish rack. He said good-bye and left to go back to work, his heavy footsteps now echoing in reverse down the hall. 

“We can still hunt, you and me,” Cas said. “I know it’s not the same—”

“I know we can,” he said with more bite than he had intended. 

Dean rose, took their plates, piled them in the sink. When he turned around, Cas was there. He put his hands on Dean’s hips and pulled him close, kissed him roughly. 

“Anything else that needs cleaning, or should we skip right to the sex?” Cas asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“We can’t do it in here. I just mopped,” he said, pulling Cas out of the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our intrepid hunters are set off on their hunt -- after some minor domestic disputes and a houseguest with a penchant for putting his foot in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response on my previous chapter was great. I'm new to this fandom and this pairing, but you guys are all so awesome. Thank you so much for reading, and if you like it, there's no need to put a ring on it -- just rec it to your friends. :-)

Garth blew into town later that evening, standing in the entrance of the bunker, throwing his duffel down, and calling a far too exuberant _hallooooo_. 

They had all been in the library, dutifully researching the poltergeist, blanketed under the quiet torpor that accompanied such things. Sam smiled up at Garth, rose, started to go toward the stairs, but Garth swooped down like a flying squirrel and then all of them were enveloped in a cyclone of hugs. For such a wiry guy, Garth had a grip like a Medieval torture device. 

“Good to see you, man,” Sam said, slapping him on the shoulder. 

“Good to be here.” He pulled out a chair and sprawled out into it. “I just wrangled one bitch of a banshee, and I didn’t think she was going to let me see another sunrise. She was feisty, but I got her in the end. Can’t stop the Garth-Train.” 

“The Garth-Train, huh?” Dean asked, eyebrows raised. 

“Yes, brother, the Garth-Train. And it has officially rolled into you-all’s station. Now, what have we got here?” he asked, gesturing to the array of laptops, iPads, and books spread over the table. 

Sam launched into a rundown of the research they had found so far: Founding father of Blue Earth had died bloody, had been a bastard in his meat-life, had come back to give the residents ongoing grief from beyond the grave. Watching him fire off information like he had spent his life knowing it, answering all of Garth’s questions like a college professor with a degree in weirdness, Dean couldn’t help but think, Dammit, Sam, this is what you’re good at. You’re a decent construction worker, but you’re a great hunter. He didn’t say it, wouldn’t say it. He’d spent so long drilling all his own bullshit into Sam’s head, doing what was best for himself and calling it “best for Sam,” and keeping on the wagon of letting Sam be his own man was a daily struggle. 

“Hot damn, this sounds like one hell of a pickle these citizens of Blue Earth are in. When are you leaving?” 

“Probably tomorrow,” Dean said. 

“Well, you three will kick it and lick it with time to go to the strip club afterward.” 

Sam laughed. “I’ll have to go to the strip club here. I’ve got a couple construction jobs lined up, so I’ll be keeping the home fires burning on this one.” 

“And I do not like strip clubs,” Cas said. He glared at Garth and disappeared from the room. 

“Yikes, sorry, I didn’t mean to ruffle your man’s feathers, there. I don’t want to be stepping into any puddles of marital discord.” 

“For one, we’re not married. Don’t make it sound like we’re doing the old ball-and-chain, because we ain’t,” Dean said. “Anyway, he always – well – Cas just doesn’t understand strippers.” 

“And I suppose you’re the stripper whisperer,” Garth said. 

Dean tossed a balled-up piece of notepaper at him. 

Cas reappeared with two grocery bags clinking with six-packs of beer. He unloaded them onto the table and kept creepy eye contact with Garth as he uncapped one and handed it to him. 

Poor Garth. He would never understand Cas’ disastrous interactions with strippers. There had been that hilariously terrible time when they first met, when they got run out of the brothel. Dean had tried at various other times to get him to enjoy the finer points of naked women dancing on poles, but Cas always ended up creeping them out. Dean had even tried taking Cas to a male strip club, with the same results. What Dean would absolutely never, ever admit to Garth was that Cas had all but forbidden him to go to strip clubs alone and he had to cajole Sam into going from time to time. He wouldn’t destroy what he had with Cas in the name of seeing boobs, but he still had itches that even Cas couldn’t scratch. 

“I’m sorry, man,” Garth said. “Thanks for the beer.” 

Cas just stared at him, and Dean pulled him back by the belt loop, hauling him into a chair. He shot Dean a look that could have smashed a window, which didn’t faze Dean in the least after all this time. Garth might be annoying, but he didn’t need to worry about getting smote in his sleep while he was at the bunker. 

Sam cleared his throat, shut his laptop. “So, let’s hear about this banshee.” 

“Hoo boy,” Garth said, draining half his beer. “She was just outside of Pueblo, and she’d been feasting on the populace something fierce. A contact of mine in local law enforcement called me in on it . . .”

Dean settled in with his beer, let his arm drift over to drape across the back of Cas’ chair, his fingers worrying gently at the hard ridge of Cas’ shoulder blade underneath his hoodie. He relaxed a little bit, leaning back into the touch and sighing so slightly that no one except Dean would have seen it. 

As expected, Garth’s story lasted the better part of an hour, and by the end of it, he had arranged cashed-out beer bottles on the table to demonstrate the banshee hiding behind this tree and Garth crawling out from under this bush. Dean had to admit it was actually pretty entertaining. For a fight to the death, it sounded pretty fun. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw Sam laugh like that. Even Cas managed a grudging chuckle.

“. . . so there I was, and I thought I was burnt toast, amigos. My knife was halfway across the desert, she was on top of me, ready to chow down, and then I remembered—” He pulled a letter opener from his jacket. “My great-granddad’s letter opener. He once got a letter from Franklin Roosevelt that he opened with this letter opener, and he always said it was good luck. I carry it with me because, you know, I don’t really have a permanent address, so I don’t open a lot of letters. Anyway, I stabbed her with this and that’s all she wrote.” He cackled at his own pun. 

Dean pulled another beer from the bag, opened it on the edge of the table, and slid it across to Garth. “Well, good on you, my man. Making the world a safer place.” 

“Cheers to that,” he said. He had had three beers, and he was swaying in his seat. It might finally knock him out a little. 

Dean himself was getting tired. He’d spent most of that day cleaning the bunker, and then there was a little afternoon delight with Cas. He stretched and yawned. 

“Well, we better call it a night,” he said, standing. He finished the last of his beer and started gathering the empties to take to the kitchen on his way to bed. “Gotta hit the road pretty early. You want to join us?” 

“Nah, man, I’m beat from this previous engagement. I’ll stay here with Sam at the H-Q, if he’ll have me.” 

“’Course, man,” Sam said. “Who knows how many fictitious government agents we’ll need on deck.” 

Cas stood, helped Dean clear up the empty bottles. He didn’t exactly apologize to Garth for looking at him like he was about to get a helping of brimstone, but he did smile a little. 

Sam and Garth stayed in the library, gabbing away like nerdy old ladies about the next case. Dean and Cas took the clanking bags of empties into the kitchen, depositing them by the sink. 

“He didn’t mean anything by it, you know.” 

“I know.” Cas rooted around in the pantry, coming out with a half-full bag of barbecue potato chips. He liked to snack on things like this, he said, because the salt and artificial flavorings broke through his angelic sense of taste. He crunched a few chips. 

Dean went over and grabbed a handful from the bag. They tasted even better after a few beers, in the quiet of the kitchen, far away from Garth’s long-form storytelling. 

“We can do something else once we give this poltergeist what-for,” Dean said. 

“I know,” Cas said. He folded the bag up and put it back in the pantry, licking bright orange powder from his fingers. A dusting of it remained at the corner of his mouth, which Dean leaned over and kissed off for him. He managed a grudging smile. 

“We’re solid, Cas. I’m sure as hell not gonna choose strip clubs over you,” he said. 

“I know,” Cas said, still smiling, adding a whisper of a laugh. 

“Though I might ask you sometime to get naked for me and dance to ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me.’ I have the gold thong all picked out,” he said, pulling Cas in, kissing him good and proper, grinding his hips. 

“That will never happen.” 

“Never say never,” Dean said, dragging him down the hall. 

They kept separate rooms, because they could, because they sometimes needed it. But privately, Dean really thought of “his” room as “theirs,” and “his” bed as “theirs.” The memory foam mattress now had one slightly smaller indent on the other side, and Dean wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he liked to think there was the shadow of wings coming off the side of it. 

“You’ve got to get up early,” Cas reminded him as he shut the door and started getting naked. 

“Yeah, but you can drive, and I can sleep,” Dean said, tossing his shirt at him before tackling him to the bed, unbuttoning his jeans, and kissing the fine trail of hair that led to his cock. After all these years, the sight and the smell of it still delighted him. 

Cas batted him on the back of the head. “Or you could actually sleep, and save that for the road. I can, after all, multi-task better than you.” 

Dean raised his head, rested his chin on Cas’ hip. “You are filthy.”

“I learned from the best.” He nudged Dean with his knee, and Dean rolled over to let him up. He went to Dean’s dresser and pulled out an ancient t-shirt, riddled with holes at the collar and under the arms. He ditched his jeans, folding them primly on a chair, replaced his presentable t-shirt with this one that Dean usually reserved for hunts he thought might turn extra gory. Cas seemed oblivious to the faded dark spots of blood and viscera.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas drive to Blue Earth to check out their poltergeist, and the solitude of the road allows Dean some time for reflection.

The next morning, he fried up a mountain of breakfast: potatoes, eggs, bacon, and a Jenga stack of toast. He made two pots of coffee and set it all out on the counter. 

Cas was the first in the kitchen, of course. He didn’t sleep, in the traditional sense of the word. He lay with Dean at night most of the time, and if he got bored, he did his own thing. He wandered around the bunker, read the books there, played Xbox. He was pretty good at _Call of Duty_ , Dean found out one night when he himself couldn’t sleep. Sometimes, though, he went out and answered prayers. He helped stranded motorists, first-time parents with sick kids, drug dealers in over their heads. He counseled the grieving and soothed suffering. He had become, through his years without the heavenly hosts breathing holy fire down his neck, an angel from a picture book, from the naïve imaginations of humans. 

“Smells good,” he said, pouring himself some coffee. 

Dean dished up a plate for himself and Castiel handed him his favorite mug – the yellow one with the cowboy on a bucking bronco. It said WELCOME TO WYOMING – CONSIDER EVERYONE ARMED on the other side. Dean splashed a little cream in the bottom of the mug and took it to the table. 

“I packed while you were asleep,” Cas said, nabbing some toast. 

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Did you remember my silver knife with the holster?” 

“Yes, Dean, I remembered the knife _I_ gave you.” 

“Well, bless my stars and garters,” Garth said from the doorway. “I’ve seen some cray shit in my day, but this takes the taco.” 

Dean and Cas looked around, eyebrows raised, sweeping the room. “What?” Dean asked. 

“Breakfast with the Winchesters and you and your man all arguing about which weapons got packed. It’s downright sweet.” 

Dean stabbed a potato like it was a demon. “Shut up and grab yourself some food.” 

“Yeah, yeah, gotta keep up that Dean Winchester thing,” he said, piling eggs, bacon, and potatoes on a slice of toast, drowning the whole thing in ketchup, and squishing another slice of toast on top. Dean didn’t know whether to puke or congratulate him. 

That _Dean Winchester thing_ was Dean’s life. No one was more surprised than him that he had a home and someone to come home to, that he got to work on cars sometimes and hunt sometimes, that he and his brother hadn’t tried to die for each other or anyone else in almost five years. And he felt like if he acknowledged any of this, that the family curse would come crashing down on him and it would all go up in smoke. Far be it from Dean to invite the Evil Eye. 

“Just make sure I get a front pew if you decide to make an honest man outta him, huh Cas?” 

Cas smiled into his coffee. “Sure thing, Garth.”   
***

They hit the road not long after that, before nine. Blue Earth was about a day’s drive, and if Dean felt like being honest, he could easily admit to himself that he was looking forward to it. 

Being out there with Cas was a whole different animal than being out there with Sam. Road time with Sam was good-natured sniping, arguments about everything from music to food. It was an endless round of _Hey, remember when . . ._ or _Where was that one place?_ Enough time had passed since Dad, since they’d both tried and failed at normal lives, that all those times faded into the background as little more than amusing capers. 

_Hey, remember when Dad was in the hospital for a week but we didn’t know and we were snowed in up in that cabin in New Hampshire?_

_Oh yeah! You nearly burned the place down._

_No, you did._

_No, you did._

And so on.

With Cas, though, it was something Dean couldn’t explain. There was sex and there were talks like he could never have with Sam. Cas had been around for the whole of human existence. He had just about seen it all, and he still got excited over things like the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine and fields of flowers and Stuckey’s pecan logs. He had a perspective that no one else in Dean’s world had. 

It relaxed them both, being out there, and Dean thought it made Cas even more beautiful than usual. Sometimes, he’d rest his head against the back of the seat and stretch his legs out, one arm resting on the door and the other on his leg. He’d stretch his neck a little, breathe into it all. The sun would shine through the window, and his Grace would shine through him, and it all met on his face, on his arms. 

It was late spring on that particular trip, not quite summer but with warm days and buzzing insects. Dean looked into the other cars they passed on the highway, and he saw families off to wherever – Grandma’s house or amusement parks or out camping. Sometimes the kids looked back, and for all the old fogey bellyaching about _kids these days_ and their iBoys and their GamePods and this and that, Dean still saw plenty of them looking out the window with that same expression he used to get. Looking at the endless trees or fields or desert, whatever they were passing through, getting this feeling like everything was just so big. Instead of making him feel small, though, it made him feel important, like here he was in this massive thing called America, and he got to be one of the little parts that made the whole thing tick. He tried to get back there, tried to forget about shitty parents or politicians or people fucking each other over like it was going out of style. It was hard, but he thought he might be able to do it, especially on that day. 

Cas had been resting his eyes, sitting calm in the passenger seat, but he reached over and put his hand on Dean’s leg. “Anything good rattling around in there?” 

Dean laughed low and put his hand over Cas’. Anyone else, and he’d have felt too silly to say what he’d been thinking. He’d deflect and say he was thinking about the acting in the last _Casa Erotica_. But with Cas, he knew he could say it, so he did, spilled the whole thing. 

Cas smiled, nodded, eyes still closed. “That’s how I felt among the hosts sometimes. It was fleeting, but it happened. Maybe under similar circumstances, too. I felt it most keenly when I was working with one or two of my brothers and sisters, when it was just a few of us, out on a mission. It wasn’t all killing, you know.” 

“I know. It feels like it sometimes, but it isn’t.” 

Cas hummed a soft agreement and slid down in his seat. Dean looked out the window, and there was a beat-up station wagon cruising alongside them. In the backseat was a floppy-haired kid. Dean couldn’t really tell if it was a boy or a girl, and it didn’t matter. The kid had some little toys and was walking them along the edge of the window, half paying attention to the game he or she was making up. Dean caught the kid’s eye, smiled, nodded. The kid looked back, a smile tugging. A tiny hand came up, waved.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas arrive at their destination, ready to kick ass and take names -- after the shower sex, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets explicit. (Finally, right?)
> 
> As always, thanks so much for reading.

They hit Blue Earth about six in the evening. It was still pretty light out, the days already long, though there was still a bite of cold creeping in. They found a motel at the edge of town, the Blue Earth Motor Lodge. It was the sort of place that would forever be familiar to Dean. If he lived in the Men of Letters bunker for another ten years and didn’t see one of these places in all that time, the second he did, he’d still be brought back to it. He’d always be able to recall the grainy, stiff feel of sheets washed in bulk with cheap detergent, the smell of bar soap that left his skin red and hot, the particular stuffiness of blackout curtains and frigid air conditioners. 

In these small towns, if it was him and Cas on a hunt, they still asked for a double room. It galled him. Both of them were more than equal to the task of kicking some backwoods asshole’s teeth in, should the need arise, but neither of them wanted to. The worst part was, they didn’t feel a single iota of shame over what they were. They were family, and that was that. But Dean wasn’t stupid. He knew how it was. Hell, he knew how it would be if John could see the two of them. John wasn’t a hateful man – not about this kind of thing, anyway – but he had his ways, and his ways didn’t include either of his sons shacking up with other dudes. He’d made that clear enough over years of snide comments if they saw two guys shopping together in a grocery store. He’d always said, _When you find a nice girl . . ._. There had never been any talk of a possibility of this. 

So they checked into the Blue Earth Motor Lodge, asking for a double room. The woman behind the counter eyed them suspiciously, and Dean just smiled at her. She handed them two keys, pursed her lips. Dean reminded himself that it was rude to hope that she got thrown around by the town poltergeist a little before they got to it and torched it. It was 2019, for Christ’s sake. Had this woman actually seen so little of life that two men who were not blood relations checking into a roadside motel was at all worthy of casting shade? 

Cas immediately took Dean’s mind off of this, for as soon as they got in the door, he was pulling his t-shirt over his head, unbuttoning his jeans, and kicking off his shoes. Dean dropped his bag on the bed that wasn’t going to be used and raised one eyebrow. 

“You need a shower,” Cas said with a smirk that never failed to make Dean want to punch him. 

“So why are you the one getting naked?” 

“Thought I’d join you,” he said with a shrug, like that was normal, like he wasn’t an angel of the lord, like he needed showers. 

Dean crossed his arms over his chest and did his level best to hold back the laugh that already rumbled in his throat. “Why would I shower now? Why not wait until after the grave desecration, when I’m all sweaty and covered in dirt?” 

Cas pulled him close and uncrossed his arms, lifted his shirt up. Dean allowed himself to be manipulated like this, his arms akimbo above his head. “Because I believe I hinted at road head earlier, and you didn’t let me drive.” 

Dean finally laughed at that, because hearing Cas say “road head” was hilarious and unsettling, all at once. 

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, ditching his shoes and the rest of his clothes. He pulled Cas in close for a kiss before dragging him into the bathroom. 

They fumbled with the taps, found the right temperature, and it all took longer than it should have on account of the fact that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. After this long, maybe they should have been past reacting to each other’s naked bodies like giddy teenagers, but that showed no signs of slowing down. Cas looked at Dean’s scars, at his belly, at all of him like it was the first time and like Dean was on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel rather than right in front of him. In turn, Dean reacted to Cas’ slim hips and pert little ass with nothing but awe in the fact that it was his to look at whenever he wanted. 

They finally made it into the hot spray, their skin almost instantly turning red. The water pressure was too forceful and it was the kind of showerhead that pelted the water out in an angry mist, but none of that mattered as Cas squirted a little cheap shampoo into his hand and lathered it into Dean’s hair. All the while, he pressed gently on the top of Dean’s head. He laughed at that, kissing Cas amid a small cascade of perfumed bubbles sliding down the side of his face. He sank to his knees, eyes closed as Cas’ fingers wiped away the suds. 

Dean loved sucking Cas off. He loved going down on people in general. It was always the kind of thing he enjoyed, men or women, it didn’t matter. A person’s smell was so perfect and concentrated there, and with Cas that smell was an overpowering purity. He smelled clean and right in ways that humans just never did. Dean ran his nose along the crease of Cas’ thigh, took him into his mouth. Fingers tightened in his hair, one hand roaming to the back of his neck and holding him steady there. 

His knees protested this after far too short a time, another reminder that he was getting old, if he wasn’t already there. The good news was that Cas never lasted long at times like this. Maybe it was because his main source of information about human interaction came from hunters, but these roadside motels or a car or a broken down warehouse were all places of carnal delight, and Dean never had to do much to get him to come. 

When he did, his hands tight on the back of Dean’s neck, his hips thrusting his cock deep into Dean’s mouth, Dean knew he tasted Cas’ grace.  
***

Later on, over a burger for Dean and beers for them both, they put their heads together and researched the case at hand. He always missed Sam on hunts, if for no other reason than he was much more fun to needle and aggravate than Cas, but he had to admit – he focused so much better after some good shower sex and with Cas’ foot resting against his under the rickety table. 

The deaths had been centered by a house next to the old cemetery, which led Dean to wonder once again if humans had any sense of self-preservation in the least, prone as they were to living in the damnedest places. The house had been a former rectory of a church, blah blah blah, one of the pastors was a particularly hard-line individual, and if people got too close, he moved the furniture and rattled the doors until the people either left or the furniture he was moving fell on top of them. He himself had died a particularly violent death at the hands of a man he had tossed out of the church. Honestly, didn’t people research their charming little Victorian dollhouses before they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on them? 

They spent the early evening watching a marathon of _Dr. Sexy_ on cable. Dean sat up, back propped up with all the extra pillows from the unused bed, Cas sprawled out against him. Cas was warm and relaxed, clad in just a thin t-shirt and boxer briefs. Dean never thought he would see days like these, with Cas unbuttoned and informal, still an angel but creeping so close to humanity. 

“Good thing Dr. Sexy is a doctor. If I were him, I would order a full battery of tests for sexually transmitted infections. Every three months,” Cas said. 

“There’s a Very Special Episode I’d like to see.” 

“Special indeed.” 

Dean had a couple more beers, and it left him feeling fuzzy. He almost thought that torching old Reverend Horton’s carcass could wait until the next night, except he remembered that in the past week alone, the guy had crushed and mangled four of Blue Earth’s citizens. 

“It’s go-time,” he said when ten p.m. hit. 

Outside, it was pitch dark except for the Tang-orange halos of streetlights casting glowing circles on the black, dry pavement. They trundled out of the parking lot, the only sign of life or movement. All the other cars were snug in their spaces, the occupied windows still illuminated with either the eerie blue of a television screen or the yellow of the lamps inside. It was homey for one of those sorts of places, though Dean fully understood he might have been biased. His home up until about five years ago had been a series of places like this. 

The registration office was in a little island in the middle of the parking lot, the sturdy square pod lit up. Through the window, he saw the same bored woman who had checked them in earlier. She pulled out her phone, stared at the screen, put it away. She looked like she needed to go home, and he forgave her any shade she had thrown his way earlier. He’d be surly, too, if he had to spend huge swaths of his days in a human aquarium like that. 

Cas had Dean’s phone, a map up on the screen, casting his face in a white glow. It was funny – the color of the screen wasn’t too far off from his grace, though the ways in which they lit him were so different. His grace was more like a shimmer just beneath the surface. He didn’t show it off, or didn’t mean to, but it was there anyway. Maybe Dean only saw it so clearly because he knew what he was looking for. If other people saw it like he did, few of them let on. Of course Cas got looks. He was pretty in ways most people simply weren’t, grace or no grace. But Dean saw the ways it lit him up, the way it made his eyes shine or his skin radiate. 

“Will you still want to get it on with me when I’m old?” 

“Your soul doesn’t age.” He said this absently, fumbling with something on the phone, a response as normal to him as _Yes, dear, I’ll swing by the store._

“But my body—”

“Was never meant to last anyway.” He furrowed his brow, poked his index finger at the screen. “Why is there a calendar reminder that just says ‘Busty Asian Beauties’?” 

Dean cleared his throat, took his phone back. “They, uh, they had a big update today. I like to – um—” 

“Keep abreast?” Cas asked, snatching the phone back. 

“Where’s that cemetery?” 

Cas laughed, shook his head. “Turn right on Schiller.” 

They found it, parked in a small copse of trees just inside the gate. Dean cut the lights and they surveyed the lay of the land. It was totally dark in there, shadows of green and black. Outside, the streetlight glow radiated through town, but the cemetery was dark and still. The house at the far end was dark, too, with no cars or signs of occupation. 

“What do you think?” 

“Let’s do this. You’ll need another shower when we’re done.” He slapped Dean’s knee before getting out of the car. 

“I will. And this time, _you_ can suck _my_ dick.” 

“That’s fair.” 

Dean opened up the trunk, pulled out his mini-MagLite. In the wobbly beam, they located their shotguns, their iron chains, their shovels. 

Flashlights bobbing on the ground, the beams showed that the cemetery was in the same shape as the rest of the town – rundown, making an effort but not doing so great. The grass was clipped short, green enough, but buzz-cut clumps of weeds huddled here and there like rival gangs. Most of the stones were old and cracked, some dating back to the Civil War. 

Across the cemetery, they found the house. There had once been a church there, according to their research, but it had fallen down half a century before and no one had bothered to rebuild it. The house had fared better, though that appeared to be a relative term. The wraparound porch was sagging; even in the dark, Dean saw the gaping abyss of missing shingles on the roof. Where the cemetery ended and the house’s backyard began, there was a huge statue of an angel. Granite, by the look of it, nearly six feet tall, wings spread, sword drawn and pointed downward, clearly ready to smite the wicked. This cheerless sentinel marked Reverend Horton’s grave. 

Dean couldn’t tell if he thought it was one of the more accurate angel statues he’d ever seen, or one of the worst. He didn’t really relish the notion of spending the next while of his life digging up a grave while this joker was glaring down at him, but it had to be done. At least Cas could speed up the process and dig pretty quickly. He didn’t seem bothered by the statue, rather checked the rounds in his shotgun and propped it up on the base for easy access. 

They broke ground and for a good long while, nothing passed between them but the scrape of shovels, the monotonous _snick-whoosh-thump_ of digging up dirt. The sound of cars was a distant rushing river, broken only by an occasional honk or the Doppler crescendo of music. 

“My soul has to age. Everything ages.” 

“Few things decay at the alarming rate of plants and animals,” Cas said, stepping right back into the earlier conversation. “To gauge any perceptible aging of your soul would take roughly five hundred years, and even then it would just – I don’t know how to explain – change color a little bit. Go gray, like your hair.” 

“My hair isn’t gray.” Well, it wasn’t completely gray. There were shoots of silver streaking through the blond. 

Even in the dark, Dean could see Cas rolling his eyes. “No, not entirely. And your soul won’t be entirely gray either.” 

“If they let me upstairs, will you come visit me?” 

“Dean, as much as I would love to discuss what will happen to our relationship when your body dies, we do have some more pressing matters at hand.” 

Dean didn’t reply. He knew that any mention of Heaven needled Cas. He had reached such a tenuous, delicate peace with his brethren. They didn’t exactly fly down for holidays and reunions, but they hadn’t tried to kill him in a few years, so that was progress. 

They finally hit the bottom of the grave, shovels scraping on rotted wood. They climbed out, doused and salted the bad reverend’s bones, and Dean lit a book of matches, throwing the small flame into it, the lighter fluid catching and turning it into an inferno. 

When the fire went out, when Horton’s bones were toast, they filled the grave back up. The eastern sky was going from blue-black to grayish-purple, the stars slowly disappearing. 

“I’m hungry,” Dean said, looking mournfully down at his filthy clothes. Sweat ringed his shirt under his arms, and dirt streaked his clothes and face. 

“I would enjoy some coffee,” Cas said, laying a hand on Dean’s chest. The dirt and grime disappeared, leaving Dean looking almost clean. 

He kissed Cas quickly, smiling against his lips.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas solve their mystery -- or so they think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this hasn't been at a traditional fan fiction pace. There's way less butt-sex and way more of a slow burn. I sincerely appreciate the people who have stuck with it this long. I'm not used to certain things. I just ordered a vegan burger and it came without a bun and I had to tell the bartender (who reminded me of Jennifer Lawrence) that I wanted a bun, that I'm not a level 5 vegan. I feel the same about this fic. Thanks.

The diner in town was just opening up, a bleary waitress barely turning the sign from closed to open. It was the sort of place that Dean had seen thousands of times before, familiar even though he’d never been to this particular establishment. 

The bell over the door tinkled a hello as they walked in. The waitress eyed them suspiciously, her blue-shadowed eyes narrowing a moment. She was still young but had that older look to her, an aged and distressed patina that came from having to work hard at a young age. Her hair was ironed flat with a mess of blond and brown highlights and streaks running throughout. Dean smiled at her and she at least stopped looking at them like she was afraid of getting robbed. 

“Just passing through,” he assured her. “This a good place to get some coffee and breakfast?” 

She managed a smile, then, and it took some of the miles off her face. “Sure is. You all find a seat and I’ll bring out some coffee.” 

They sat in a Pepto-pink booth near the back of the diner. Everything was clean but run-down, the vinyl of the booths cracking in places, the finish on the tables nearly rubbed off, the floor trampled and pocked but spotless. They made the best of what they had, and Dean would never fail to respect any place or person that could do that. 

The waitress – whose nametag proclaimed her to be Skye – came by, set down two sturdy white mugs and filled them with coffee. 

“Where you all passing through from?” 

“Kansas,” Dean said. 

“Well that makes us neighbors,” she replied. “No offense, but you look like you could have come from California.” 

“None taken,” Dean said, fixing her with one of his most charming smiles. “California’s a nice place.” 

“Never been, but it looks great in pictures, don’t it?” 

Dean agreed with her on that account, and she left them alone with the menu. Their special seemed to be hashbrowns and sausage wrapped in a pancake and smothered with country gravy, which he couldn’t bring himself to say no to. Cas settled on coffee and bacon. When Skye came back and took their orders, she raised a skeptical eyebrow but said nothing more than, “We’ll have that out in a sec.” 

Afterward, he could barely drive back to the motel, the breakfast weighing him down. He crawled right into bed, falling asleep to the sound of Cas turning on the TV and snuggling in next to him.  
***

It felt like minutes, but the small sliver of light shining between the blackout curtains pointed to the passage of several hours, when pounding on the door woke him. 

“Housekeeping!” The voice was strangled, frantic. “Housekeeping!” 

Dean sat up, rubbed his eyes. Cas was sitting at the table in the corner, noodling around on the computer. He looked at Dean with wide eyes, shrugged. 

“Housekeeping!” 

Cas hurried over, opened the door about two inches, and started to politely tell the crazed woman outside that they would be checking out in just a few minutes, when she pushed past him. 

“I’m sorry to barge in. Like, I mean that,” she said. “But there’s another body.” 

Dean blinked, rubbed his eyes, pulled the sheet closer to himself. He was, after all, sitting there in underwear and a t-shirt that was more hole than seam. “Ma’am—”

“Look, I know you guys are hunters, okay? Old-ass car, cagey demeanor, leave at like ten p.m. and come back at dawn looking bedraggled as hell? You’re too pretty to be tweakers. Come on, I been running this joint since I was fifteen. More than enough of you all have come through here. So whoever’s bones you lit up last night, they wasn’t the right ones, okay? I’ll give you a free night.” 

Dean snapped into action, forgetting any semblance of modesty, and pulled on his jeans. “How do you know there was another body?” 

“My cousin Eldridge is on the force,” she said. “We both knew something was hinky with these deaths, and I texted him last night, told him the cavalry had rode into town. He called me before calling it in to dispatch. Dead female, probably early twenties. Found her in the house.” 

“How do you know she wasn’t laying there a few days?” he called, running to the bathroom to make an attempt at brushing his teeth. 

“Eldridge said one of his buddies had just checked the joint out, right after dawn. Peeked in the windows and whatnot. She wasn’t there. And they said she was found right in the front room.” She sat down on the unused bed. 

So while him and Cas were chowing down on greasy pork products, some poor girl was getting murdered at the site they had been at just an hour before. Whatever was in that house wasn’t Reverend Horton, and it was playing with them. 

Dean grabbed clean socks, sat down on the unmade bed. “You said hunters come through here sometimes. You know about salt?”

She nodded. 

“Good. You go back in your office and lay down as much of it as you can, and you stay there.” He grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, scrawling down the exorcism incantation. He handed it to her. “Anyone comes in looking shifty, you yell this at them, okay? Call Eldridge, tell him we’re on our way and do not call in anyone else, you hear?” 

“Got it,” she said. Finally, she managed to look a bit freaked out. Jesus, what was in the water in this town? Dean was sort of surprised there was anyone left. 

Cas already had their gear packed up and ready to go. They hopped in the car, and sped off toward the old house. 

A stocky guy was pacing around a police cruiser when they got there. He had that overgrown baby look of small town cops, that fresh face on a jock-gone-to-seed body. 

“Eldridge, I presume?” 

“Yes, sir,” he said, sticking out his hand. 

Dean shook it, said, “Don’t call me sir.” 

They made a hasty round of introductions and split up, with Dean taking the inside and Cas going to search the perimeter with Eldridge. 

The girl was still laid out in the living room, one leg bent, one arm out to the side as if reaching for something. Her eyes were open, glassy and unseeing, and rigor had barely started to settle in. She was still almost warm. Hours ago, this nameless woman had been alive and kicking, with worries and hopes and frustrations like everyone else, and something had killed her with no other motive than to make a point. Days like this, monsters really lived up to their name. He wanted to close her eyes, but didn’t want to leave prints on her body. He settled for whispering, “I’m sorry. If you can hear me, I’m sorry.” 

Dean slunk through the living room, the parlor, the dining room with his EMF meter out. He scanned these rooms slowly, and there wasn’t a single blip. More than anything else, that scared him. 

A feeling of unease crept over him like fog and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He went outside onto the porch, ready to call out for Cas and Eldridge, but stopped cold in his tracks. Eldridge lay sprawled out on the lawn and there was a man with one arm around Cas’ throat, and the other shoving the business end of an angel blade into his side. 

“Let him go!” Dean called. 

“Or you’ll what?” A cruel smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowed and cold as beach stones. He was taller than Cas, wiry thin, wearing jeans, t-shirt, and a jacket. He had lank brown hair, a hawkish nose, a small mouth. He might have been cute if Dean had seen him at any time other than this. For all his human trappings, he was unmistakably an angel, the way he stood too straight and radiated diffidence. 

“Please,” Dean added, unashamed when his voice broke. 

“I’d say I was sorry,” he said, “but the fact of the matter is that I have waited years on this stinking, decaying trash heap, and I am more than glad to have my foulest brother in my hands at long last.” 

“If I’m not mistaken, your foulest brother was way worse than Cas.” 

“You mean Lucifer?” 

The creature laughed and let his true voice come through. The window behind Dean shattered and sprayed him with shards of glass. He crouched over the railing, his ears throbbing, a thin stream of blood flowing from them. 

“Lucifer had a part to play. Every story needs a villain, you know? It’s no fun otherwise. But this one—” He jabbed the angel blade into Cas’ side, a splotch of blood spreading over his shirt and a trickle of grace shining out. “This one just went in and tinkered with everything because he thought he deserved better. Thousands of us, hundreds of thousands, and this one thought he was so special that he could throw it all out. And for what? You? This world? I wouldn’t trade the most boring Heaven for this festering sore.” 

“Please,” Dean said again. “You guys got Heaven back. And Cas doesn’t even want it. He chose to stay here. He’s out of your way.” 

“That’s not the point!” The earth rumbled and shook as the angel cried out. Eldridge moved on the grass, a bare twitch of his fingers, but it still heartened Dean. 

“What’s the point then? You think he hasn’t suffered? Trust me, man, he suffered.” 

“When he stole Theo’s grace? When he murdered him and stole his grace? When he obliterated hosts in Heaven, playing God? When he defied orders and became as petulant and ungrateful as you creatures? He _felt bad_ about it?” The angel twitched his chin forward, and Dean went flying back against the empty window, his hand coming down on a jagged shard of glass. He sucked in a breath as pain shot through his hand and through his chest where the angel held him. 

“Brother, do not do this,” Cas said. His voice was like a soothing, cool breeze. 

“You have no right to call me brother,” the angel said, digging the blade in deeper. 

“Perhaps not, but you are still my brother. We’ve fought together. Don’t you remember? On the same side.” 

“I’m done with this,” the angel said. 

_Please, Cas,_ Dean prayed, _do something. Don’t stand there and let this dickwing kill you._

Before Cas could get his message, though, the two of them disappeared with a rustle and a soft wisp of warm air. There was nothing but grass where they had been, where Cas had been.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas is missing, and Dean does what he does best -- frets, drinks, and then asks for help from unlikely sources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't caught up on the show, because I don't have TV and am always behind. But I heard about some of the shenanigans, particularly last night's finale. I thought about not updating the story, but I figured, you know, this is fanfiction. Its sole purpose is to explore the relationships outside the constraints of ever-evolving canon. So I'm going to post the rest of it, as I wrote it, without trying to change to accommodate certain events. This story ultimately has a happy ending -- as happy as those Winchesters will ever get. I think we need to see that right now. We need to see Dean being okay. So here's my contribution to that. I hope you like it. 
> 
> This is my first Destiel fic, and a lot of people have read it and given it kudos, and I'm totally excited about it. We've gotta stick together when TPTB want us to be sad.

Eldridge woke up a few minutes later while Dean was still sitting on the porch steps with a handkerchief wrapped around his gouged hand and a gormless look on his face as he stared off into the distance. He got up, dusted himself off, held his head. 

“What the hell happened?” 

“You know how on TV and in movies angels are all nice and shit?” 

“Um, yeah,” Eldridge said, clearly wondering who had the worse head injury in this conversation. 

“Well, it ain’t the truth. Angels are fucking awful. I got the only good one in the bunch.” 

“Your, um, friend – he’s an angel?” 

“He’s not just my friend,” Dean said. “He’s – he’s—” Dean didn’t have a word for what Cas was. He hated words like _boyfriend_ or _husband_ , _partner_ had too many other meanings, and _he’s my everything_ was so cloyingly sweet that it always got stuck in his throat if he even tried to say it. But the truth was that Cas was what kept him honest, what kept him even remotely on the up-and-up. Cas was the best sex buddy he’d ever had. He was the most annoying, infuriating, and delightful thing in Dean’s life next to Sam. “He’s more than that.” 

Eldridge cleared his throat. “That’s cool, man. The guy who runs the coffee shop I go to, he’s got a friend like that.” 

Dean shot the guy a look, thinking that his head injury would let him off the hook this time, but if they met again and he said something stupid, there would be words. 

“Anyway, yeah, Cas is an angel.” 

_Is, is,_ it was important to remember. Present tense. Still alive. 

“And that other dude?” 

“One of the flying jackass variety.” 

“Fuck, man. I got zero clue as to how I’m gonna call this one in.” 

Dean stood up. “You’re gonna say that there’s another body. You’re gonna tell them you found her, and before calling for backup, the nutjob that killed her clocked you good and when you woke up, he was gone. You’re not gonna mention me or Cas. You’re not gonna talk some bullshit about angels or ghosts. You’re gonna say this is some sicko human that did this. You got that?” 

Eldridge nodded. “Yeah, man. I got it.” 

“I’m gonna do my level best to get this sonofabitch, but either way, I’m pretty sure he won’t be coming to call again. He got what he came for.” 

Dean got up, started to his car. Behind him, Eldridge was asking for more information, but it was like late-summer cicada buzz. Dean couldn’t pick out any actual words. 

His hand shook as he started up the car, and he did his best to steady it as he pulled out. He sped through town and back to the motel, the front desk lady jetting out of her office pod and making a hasty beeline for the Impala as soon as it screeched to a halt in front of the room. 

“Are you okay? Eldridge said—”

Dean held up a hand. “Lady, I cannot have this or any conversation right now. Suffice to say, this fuckstick got what he wanted, and your neighbors were all just collateral fucking damage. I am truly sorry about that.” 

“If there’s anything—” 

“There isn’t.” 

She stayed in the parking lot, standing by his car, and he left her there to go into the room. He couldn’t deal with civilians poking their noses in his business, couldn’t deal with questions about the case. There was one thing in this for him, one focus, and that was getting Cas back. 

He paced around the room, hands running through his hair, scratching at his scalp. The handkerchief around his left hand was soggy with blood, smears and droplets of it streaking in his hair and face. Finally, he stopped long enough to wash up as best he could, wrap it in an actual bandage. They didn’t need those much anymore, what with Cas and his powers. 

He could still smell Cas in the room, his crisp ocean smell. In a frenzy, Dean went to the pillow he had lain on and pulled it up to his face, breathed in deep. Tears threatened, and he allowed himself one moment of all-encompassing grief and fear before putting the pillow down and pulling out his cell phone. He went to his most recent calls, and of course, Sam’s name was there. He paused, though, with his thumb over it. Sam was working. He was restoring an old building, drinking terrible coffee and joking around with the other guys and gals on the job. He was getting somewhere close to normal. Dean scrolled down further and dialed Charlie. 

She answered on the second ring. “Sir Dean of Winchester, my most favorite wayward subject!” 

A laugh shook its way out of his throat, wet and sobbing. “Hey. Charlie.” 

“You okay?” 

“No, man. Cas is gone. This angel lured us here and—”

“Where are you?” 

“Blue Earth, Missouri.” 

“I’m wrapping something up in Tulsa. I can be there tomorrow. Dean, promise me you won’t do anything stupid.” 

“I promise.” 

“Promise on Sam’s life.” 

“Charlie, Jesus—”

“How long have I known you? And how many times have I seen your ass go off half-cocked and charge in and make it worse?” 

“Fuck you.” 

“No, my dear, fuck you. Now, swear on Sam’s life that you will not do anything stupid.” 

“I swear! Jesus!” 

“Swear on what?” 

“Sam’s life! Goddammit, Charlie.” 

“Tough love, Dean.”

She hung up and he had nothing to do but wait. 

He pulled back the curtain, and the front desk lady was leaning against his car still, arms crossed, biting on a fingernail. He yanked open the door. 

“Hey, what’s your name?” 

She straightened up, smoothed down her t-shirt. “Rhonda.” 

“Rhonda, where’s the nearest liquor store?” 

“Down the road a ways. Look, Dean, I can help. We’ve had our share of weird shit. Not to mention, one time, my friend got kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend—”

“Rhonda, I’m sure you’re super-nice and a stellar human being, but you need to get the hell out of my way right now and let me do my thing. I won’t jump in the front office and try to run this motel, so you don’t jump in here and try to do my job, all right?” 

“But—”

“I gotta go on a whiskey run.” 

He yanked the driver’s side door open and got in, started the car, and started to pull out slowly. She stumbled back, staring at him as he navigated the parking lot. Once he was out on the road, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw her walk back to her office, slow and stumbling. 

He hit the liquor store and bought two bottles of Old Crow, drove back feeling like he couldn’t wait until the parking lot to get them open. He managed it, screeching into a spot with a lurch. The back wheels bucked in protest and he got out, slammed the door shut, went into the room. 

There was nothing for it but to drink until Charlie showed up. That motherfucker could have winged Cas anywhere in the known universe: Earth, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory. He could have taken him anytime in history, stashed him away in some nobody’s eternity, killed him outright and kept his grace in a Mason jar. The possibilities were endless and none of them were good. 

Hours passed, and he did nothing but drink. At first it took the edge off, made his arms feel light and his chest feel warm. But he tipped past that point and then it was a cyclone in his mind, calling forth all those other things he’d fucked up and failed. Finally, he pictured a future without Cas, and that was no future he wanted. 

Charlie would come soon, bringing her smarts with her. She’d do all she could to come up with something. And if she didn’t – well – if she didn’t, Dean knew he would be lucky to see past forty anyway, so there wasn’t any reason not to take it into his own hands, if it came down to it. 

A while later, three-quarters of the way through bottle number one, there was a knock on the door. It was too early for it to be Charlie, so he yelled, “Go away.” 

“It’s Rhonda. I brought by some chicken and biscuits. Better get em before they get too cold.” 

He staggered to the door, flung it open, swayed and held himself steady on the frame. 

“Thanks.” 

“Tell me you got help or something comin,” she said. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice coming out of him like a jagged, torn rag. 

“Good.” She thrust a greasy paper bag in his hands. “Don’t go puking on my carpet, now. My housekeepers get real bitchy when they gotta clean up puke.” 

She was half-turned to go and he was ready to close the door and eat this chicken. It smelled good. 

“Eldridge said they identified the girl. They found her people and they’ll be coming for her body. He said he’s sorry about your friend.” 

“He’s not my friend,” Dean said, eyes fluttering. “He’s my – we’re – you know.” 

Rhonda nodded. “Figures. All the good ones are taken – most times by each other.” 

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m one of the good ones,” he said. “Cas definitely is, though.”

“In any case,” Rhonda said. “Holler if you need me.” 

Dean wouldn’t need her. If he couldn’t keep Cas from getting kidnapped, then he sure as hell wasn’t going to put a civilian in harm’s way – and harm seemed to follow him like a stink. 

The chicken was good and the biscuits were like buttery clouds. He could feel them sopping up the alcohol. 

His phone rang, and his vision was doubling, so he stared at it a moment and the only way he knew it was Sam was that it was playing “Dazed and Confused.” He hovered his thumb over the answer button before tapping it. 

“’Lo?” 

“I knew something went pear-shaped.” 

“How you know something wrong?” 

“Well,” Sam said in his most reasoned tone, “you’ve either had a stroke that affected the speech part of your brain, or you’re pain-drinking. Come on, Dean. This ain’t my first rodeo. Or my tenth. Or my fiftieth.” 

“Some angel dick took Cas.” 

There was the sound of something clattering in the background, the scraping of chair legs. Dean could picture his brother sitting up, startled, hair whipping around like a shampoo commercial. 

“Took him? Took him _where_?” 

“No fuckin clue.” 

“Why are you sitting there getting drunk? Never mind. I forget that’s your go-to Plan A. Listen, I can be there later tonight. It’s what, six o’clock?” 

“Stay there, Sammy,” Dean said, mustering as much force as he could. “You’re working a legit job right now.” 

“But—”

“I called Charlie. She’ll be here tomorrow.” 

“So? She can’t fight-fight, if it comes down to it—”

“Oh come on,” Dean said, waving his hand even though no one was there to see it. “She’s better’n both of us. She don’t even need to fight. Figures it all out on computers.” 

“Wow. Okay, Dean, I’m going to let you sober up a little, and then I’ll call you and maybe somewhere along the line, I’ll get you to think rationally. It sure as hell isn’t happening right now.” 

“Wh’ever.” 

He tossed the phone somewhere and then got up, sort of aiming himself toward the bed. He passed out on Cas’ pillow, nose smashed into his smell.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's getting really desperate.

There was a thunderstorm. It was raining and there was lightning and a loud rushing sound. Through the melee, a voice. 

“Sir Dean of Winchester! This is not the behavior I expect from my subjects!” Another freezing splash of water rained down on him, reviving him enough to realize that it wasn’t a thunderstorm, but normal light and sound coupled with someone – Charlie – throwing water on him. 

“Good fucking lord, woman,” he said, batting his arm out. His eyes were still closed, but he found Charlie and the ice bucket she was holding, tossing it across the room. 

This did nothing but free her hand so she could punch him in the arm. “You groped my boob! That is _not_ the kind of boldly going where no man has gone before that I like to see.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Indeed you are. Come on, sweet cheeks. We gotta save your boyfriend.” 

This brought it all crashing back to Dean in a rush, the adrenaline spiking and his head throbbing as the light assaulted his eyes and he remembered the previous day. 

“Cas.” 

“Yeah, sweetie. Cas.” She sat down and put her hand on his knee. “Get cleaned up. We’ll get some breakfast and work on finding him.” 

He nodded and stumbled out of bed, took a sloppy shower, pulled on his other jeans. He had packed light. He was supposed to be back home now, beating Cas at video games and drinking beer. 

They went to a different diner. Something about going to a place he had been to just the day before with Cas felt wrong. He nursed some coffee while they waited for food, and Charlie pulled out a tablet, a phone, and a good old-fashioned hunter’s journal. 

“Wouldn’t figure you to go for something analog,” he said, tapping the cover. 

She shrugged. “I’ve spilled enough coffee on enough jump drives to value a heavy beast like this. Anyway, it makes me look mysterious, doesn’t it?” She picked it up and held it conspicuously over her face, swept her eyes back and forth over the top. 

He had to laugh at that, strangely relieved that it was Charlie here instead of Sam, who would have sat there with permanently furrowed brows, asking constantly if Dean was all right. No, he wasn’t all right, and Charlie knew it, but it didn’t stop her from being goofy. 

Their food arrived, no less greasy or plentiful than at the other diner. Dean was gratified to see that she had ordered a pile of food as disgusting and hearty as he had. Something about watching skinny women put away food made him happy in ways he didn’t often think about.

“Let’s get down to business,” she said, after shoveling a few mouthfuls of corned beef hash in her mouth. 

“He’s got to be alive, right?” Dean said, more to himself than to Charlie. She looked up at him helplessly, hands still tap-tap-tapping away at the tablet and her phone. “I mean, dicks like that, they like to – to torture. He’s trying to make a point, you know? Cas fucked things up for him, and—”

Charlie set down her tablet and phone, grabbed Dean’s hand. “Don’t forget – Cas is an angel and a hunter. He can hold his own.” 

“But if he warded Cas, or used sigils to bind—”

“Then Cas will fight like a human to get away. He’s not a damsel in distress.” 

They fell into silence, the space between them filled out by the static of people around them chattering, the thunk-thunk of forks scraping plates, yelling and clattering dishes coming from the kitchen. He had never been this distressed around her before, and it left him with an awkward restlessness. She had always gotten him in ways he couldn’t bring himself to examine, knew he would be in a state like this considering the situation. She did not pity him or find him weak. 

Dean knew that Cas was more than capable of handling himself, but he was family, and to Dean that meant he was to be worried over. He’d do the same for Sam, had done the same for Sam. And in fact, it was different. He and Sam had long ago said that if it came down to it, they were to let each other go, for real, not like before. If either of them died or disappeared for good, the other was to let him stay gone. Not so with Cas. Dean had made no such promises. 

He’d spent so many years with Cas by his side that he was adrift and incomplete without him. Before that, before they’d been joined at the hip, there was the comforting knowledge that he was out there, somewhere, doing whatever he did then. Now, it was total absence.   
***

They tried GPS and came up with nothing. The last known location was the house by the cemetery. Dean had to work hard to keep from throwing his own phone against a wall or screaming at the nice customer service associate on the other end of the line. He settled for hanging up on her as she asked if he would be able to take a quick customer service survey. 

Sam showed up late that afternoon, and Dean tried to get him to go back home, but he wouldn’t budge. He said it was raining and they couldn’t work in the rain. Dean didn’t question it too hard, though. He poured them all a healthy dose of Old Crow and cracked open one of the books Sam had brought. 

“When he gets back, we’re all getting microchipped,” Dean said. 

“I’m sure Crowley’s operatives in government spy agencies would love that,” Sam said. 

“I’m not going to ask – mostly for the sake of my sanity,” Charlie said. 

They both agreed she was better off doing just that.

Hours passed, or maybe they just felt like hours. Dean wasn’t fond of research under the best of circumstances, least of all when it was tantamount to sitting and spinning while Cas was probably being tortured or worse. 

He slammed the book he had been pretending to read shut. “What are we even looking for?” 

“Location spells, tracking spells,” Sam said, eyebrows raised and voice hopeful, as if this were a long and viable list of prospects. 

“We’re looking for a needle in a haystack to try and find our needle in a haystack. Sounds good.” 

He got up, the chair bucking as he did, paced around the room. He circled back to the table, downed the rest of his drink and poured another. Charlie and Sam stared up at him, helpless. 

There was one last person to call. Dean didn’t want to do it, but they’d get nowhere fast if left with books and the internet as their tools. He grabbed his coat and put it on, went outside. He walked a ways away from the room, to the edge of the parking lot, leaned against the cold cinderblock wall. He closed his eyes and asked himself one last time if this was really what he was doing, really a can of worms he wanted to open. He decided it was. 

He pulled out his phone and dialed one of the handful of numbers he had memorized, fired up a text message. 

_Crowley, you’re the last creature whose peanut butter I need up in my chocolate, but we have a situation over here._

He hit the send button and felt himself die a tiny bit. 

“Sweet talk like that, it’ll be more than my peanut butter in your chocolate.” 

Dean flinched at the demon’s voice, turned around. Crowley. Same overstated-understated black suit, same raised eyebrows. 

“I take it your fine feathered anything-but-boyfriend is in some manner of pickle.” 

Dean nodded. “Another angel took him.” 

Crowley leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. “They do tend to hold grudges, don’t they? Any idea which walking eiderdown it was?” 

“Not a clue. He was wearing some skinny guy, floppy dark hair, long nose. For all I know, he could have ditched that one and changed outfits.” 

“Did he say anything note-worthy?” 

Dean shrugged. “Cas said they’d fought together, but that doesn’t narrow the list down.” 

“No, it doesn’t. Your man got around.” It was all bark and no bite; even Crowley sounded tired of the insult. He hadn’t seen the demon in a while. Dean had killed Abbadon years back and Crowley had resumed his post, but the damage had been done. The Hell he left behind to chase angels and prophets wasn’t the Hell he came back to. He’d ended up losing his seat to some unknown a couple years ago, something that would normally be a death sentence if Crowley weren’t so Crowley-esque. He was Hell’s own cockroach. 

“How are you doing?” 

Crowley laughed. “Keeping one step ahead of Hell. Salad days are well over, my boy. You know that. When to you give a fairy fart about my well-being, anyway?” 

“I don’t know,” he said, studying the ground. “When do you start answering calls that come from old frenemies and don’t have a soul dangling in the mix?” 

“Touché. We can analyze each other later. I propose February thirtieth.” 

Dean managed a fraction of a smile at that. “Sounds good. I’ll pencil it in.” 

Some years back, he’d stopped threatening to kill Crowley. It was less fun now that the King of Hell had been dethroned. Crowley had lost most of his minions, much of his topside real estate, all of his power. He ambled around, causing the bare minimum of strife to keep in good standing with Hell. He was as close to a hunter as a demon could get. 

“Helping the Winchesters find their little lost angel is a pretty dicey prospect. I’ll need a reason to keep going. You know how I am – I get bored so easily.” 

“The more things change, huh? What’s your price?” 

“Pint of blood from each of you.” 

Dean shifted, scratched at the beginnings of beard. “I can guarantee one from me—”

“But brother dearest doesn’t know you’re out here, does he? Course he doesn’t. The only thing that can stop the Winchester Lies Express is the Winchester Lies of Omission Special.”

“Really? A lecture on honesty? From _you_?”

“I don’t do lectures for free. Just making conversation. Fine, I’ll keep the moose blood out of the deal, though it does taste delicious. Like jerky. Yours tastes like angel spunk. Any port in a storm, though, as the saying goes.” 

Dean was starting to rethink his policy of not threatening to kill Crowley. Some traditions were good and needed to be kept. “Fine. Two pints of my blood. Not all at once.” 

“Smart boy. Finding a rogue angel who’s kidnapped another angel won’t be easy. I can do it, but don’t expect that tomorrow night you’ll be canoodling with your beloved back at the bat cave.” 

“Do whatever you gotta do.” Dean didn’t say that lightly. He knew who he was dealing with. 

“That’s what I do best,” Crowley said. He straightened his jacket, ready to depart. He paused, looking like he was about to say something, but thought better of it and left.   
***

“Where were you?” Sam asked with narrowed eyes when Dean let himself back in the room. 

“Went for a walk.” 

“Uh-huh,” Sam said. 

“Shut up. What are we looking at?” 

Sam dove back into the book, but Charlie sat back and stared Dean down. He stared back, daring her to say something. She didn’t, she wouldn’t. Not to Dean.

“Couple tricky location spells,” Sam said. “But I think we can swing it.”

“Let’s get on it,” he said. Not a terrible idea to have backup. 

Sam wrote up the list of ingredients, said they might have some of them back home. He said he would drive back, didn’t mind doing it. They all agreed someone needed to stay in Blue Earth just in case. No one said it, but Dean could feel it – everyone knew Cas wasn’t just going to show up at the door. 

As soon as Sam was out the door, Charlie was on Dean with questions. He tried to remember that she was sort of new to this ride. 

“What did you do, Dean?” 

“Nothing. You hungry?” 

“I’ll buy you a sandwich if you tell me what you did.” 

Dammit. She wasn’t so new that she didn’t know the way to cripple Dean. He’d do a lot of things for a sandwich. 

“Make it pulled pork and a side of coleslaw and you’ve got a deal.” 

She narrowed her eyes. “Fine.” 

In the wake of her departure, he sat on the bed that was now his and no one else’s. He tried hard to think of anything other than the fact that he had enlisted Crowley’s help, and that Crowley was the man for the job, one hundred percent. This just left him thinking about nights when he couldn’t sleep, when Cas would get up with him and they would sit in the kitchen and talk over coffee or beer, whichever struck their fancy. It left him thinking about times on the road when he would let Cas drive, when Dean would fall asleep and wake with a start and sometimes a scream because he was so used to driving, he thought he’d fallen asleep behind the wheel. 

He’d even settle for fighting with Cas, if it meant that Cas was there to fight with. They’d had some good ones over the years, some real dish-breakers. Cas had once accidentally blown out several windows yelling at Dean. Dean couldn’t remember what they’d been fighting about, but he was sure that Cas remembered and would delight in telling him. 

Charlie’s car putted to a stop outside the motel room, and she came in with two white bags, translucent at the bottom with grease. The smell of fatty food perked him up incrementally. They set out the food and Dean pulled out a couple more beers from the mini-fridge. 

“You need to drink some water,” Charlie said, getting him a glass, plunking it down in front of him. 

He downed half the glass and then started in on his beer and food. She unwrapped her sandwich, swiped her finger through an errant dab of barbecue sauce, stared at him expectantly. 

“I asked Crowley to help find Cas.” 

She took a long swig of beer. “Former king of Hell, guy who held the contract on your very soul back in the day, guy who threatened to and tried valiantly many times to kill you and Sam – that Crowley?” 

“Would you believe me if I told you he’d changed?” 

“I’d believe that that’s what you believe,” she said, taking a bite of her sandwich. 

“Man, Charlie, what the fuck else am I gonna do? We’ve got a pile of books and the internet.” 

“You’ve got all of human thought and global satellites behind those two resources.” 

“And we’ve got to sift through a ton of dirt to get the gold nugget. Let me tell you, those Men of Letters weren’t concise, and their indices left something to be desired. Crowley is powerful and we have a history.” 

He took an angry bite of his sandwich, tearing into the bread, shreds of pulled pork hanging out like twisted wire and rebar on a demolished building. He put the sandwich down. It would be so much better if he was eating it without this conversation, which was upsetting his stomach. 

“What was his price?” 

Dean drained half his beer, stabbed a forkful of coleslaw from the little plastic cup. “Two pints of my blood. To be rendered separately.” 

Charlie slammed her sandwich down. “Dean! You are giving the former king of Hell two pints of your blood?” 

“Simmer down. He’s not going to do anything nefarious with it. He’s just going to drink it.” 

This was not the right thing to say. She pulled out her phone, said she was going to call Sam, and Dean had it out of her hand and tossed across the room in a fraction of a second. He held her wrist and bore all of his weight down on her, keeping her in her chair. For the first time in a long time, she looked scared of him, and in a dark corner of his mind that he didn’t want to shed too much light on, he was glad. He’d been cuddly big brother Dean for too long, and it would behoove everyone involved to remind her that he was among the best hunters out there, maybe one of the best hunters ever. 

“You will not call Sam. Do you hear me? Sam will shit himself and then smear it all over me—”

“Gross,” she whispered. 

“I need to have Cas back, and Crowley is the one to do that for me. I will tell Sam _after_ the fact and not a fucking second before.” 

“Dean, let me go.” 

He did just that, making sure to twist her wrist a little before doing so. He turned and left her there, rubbing the pink blush on her wrist where his hand had been, staring after him like she no longer knew what to do with him. Slamming the door as he departed the cramped hotel room, he wondered just what either of them had even expected out of that interaction. Had she expected anything other than either bald-faced lies or uncomfortable truths? Had he expected that he would tell her he was trucking with Crowley and _hush-hush, don’t tell Sam_ without her batting an eye? 

He took a walk, tried to work out all the kinks but found himself run through with nervous energy that he could not shake. He settled for leaning against a low cinderblock wall on the edge of a vacant lot. There were the remains of a building there, a jagged concrete foundation with grass and weeds growing inside its perimeter. The remnants of a small parking lot lay on the other side, the asphalt cracked, more weeds and grass springing up between them, ready to burst through. Trees that bordered it, that were once probably largely decorative and had never been meant to grow to anything more than puff balls of leaves on spindly trunks had overtaken it, their roots making the parking lot and sidewalk around it undulate. 

All the other angels he would want to call on for help were dead. Anna, Balthazar – hell, he’d even call on Naomi at this point. Metatron and his manservant Gadreel were in the wind, and he knew better than to put out an open call for help. That had not worked out in his favor the last time. 

A cold wind started to blow, and he went back to the room. As soon as he got inside, something came out, knocked out his knee. He crumpled to the floor, and then Charlie was on top of him, one knee in his chest, the other on his right arm, in just the spot to make it go dead and useless. 

Out of habit, he rattled off the exorcism rite. She just rolled her eyes and punched him once for good measure before standing up and holding him still, this time with her foot on his chest. He could have easily overpowered her, but he didn’t dare to try. 

“Charlie, what the fuck?” 

“The leader of the munchkin resistance taught me some sweet martial arts moves when I was in Oz,” she said. “Perfect for enemies that are taller and heavier.” 

The carpet underneath him was grainy and smelled of musty years of dust, a slight hint of mildew, old cigarette smoke. 

She took her foot off his chest and extended her arm. He took her hand, but she pulled him close. “If you ever do that to me again, I’ll break all your fingers _and_ your thumb. Got it?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry.” 

“You get a pass this time because your totally-not-boyfriend has been kidnapped.” 

She let him go, pushing him back a little more roughly than was necessary, he thought. 

“Now, I found something, and it’s helpful, but you’re not going to like it.” 

She went over to the table between the beds – one of which she had taken over for herself, which he thought amusing in its boldness. She grabbed her tablet and tapped something on the screen before handing it to him. An article from the Denver Post popped up. 

He scanned the screen, the first couple paragraphs hitting him square in the chest. Outside of Denver, a wildfire had started – and the man suspected of starting it swore the shrub he’d been relieving himself on had been talking to him in some foreign language before bursting into flame. Dean swallowed hard, set down Charlie’s tablet, scrubbed his hand over his face. His mouth had gone dry, fingertips cold, heart pounding like a tympanum. 

“You think it’s him?” 

“It’s a lead,” she said, shrugging. 

“I’ll call – um – my contact.” 

He sent a text to Crowley, who called him back instead of texting. 

“Hear that?” There was the sound of something crinkling. “I’m ankle-deep in broken glass in Paradox, Colorado. There was some sort of inexplicable sonic event here, and all the glass in the town broke at once. I’ve got some ideas. How about yourself?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Any leads on where he might be?” 

“No, not yet. Likely warded, though I don’t place a whole lot of stock in a crazy angel to think a demon would be coming after him. You never know with these kids today, though, do you?” 

“Crowley, please—”

“I know, I know. Find your beloved. I’ll do my best. There’s a rogue reaper works out of here. I’ll track her pert little arse down. Might as well mix business and pleasure, hadn’t I, if I’ve sunk so low as to do favors for you, eh?” 

He hung up before Dean could trade a barb back in his direction. Just as well. 

“We’ll get a start in the morning,” she said. “We’re not doing it now.” 

“But—”

“I really hate to admit this. Like, to the depths of my soul, I hate to admit this. But we’re better off with Crowley on the case than driving all night just to get there all wired and reckless. You don’t have to sleep, but—”

He waved his hand. “I know, I know.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean wrestles with telling Sam who he has on the case. The team comes closer to finding Cas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I keep thanking people for reading, but I'm going to do it again. THANK YOU! Like I said, this is my first Destiel story, and I'm so glad people have been reading and kudos-ing. I even got my first comment. :-D Sorry, sorry. I'm a dork. Please, continue on to the angsty Winchester drama.

He didn’t sleep, not really. More accurately, he fell into a dozing stupor, focus zooming in and out of consciousness. When the sun finally rose, all he remembered of the night was staring up at the dingy popcorn ceiling, the way the shadows moved when cars passed outside and the headlights swept over the walls and up to the ceiling through the slit in the curtains. 

He didn’t know if Charlie fared better. She had not tried to talk to him; it wasn’t a sleepover, for chrissakes. Still, when they got up, she had purple shadows under her eyes and a pronounced worry line squiggling in the middle of her forehead. 

Dean went out, got coffee and donuts from down the way. He checked out of the room, dodging Rhonda’s questions. He just told her to stay safe, gave her the number to one of his burner cells. 

He stood between Charlie’s little clown car and the Impala, bag of donuts on the hood, cups of coffee taking the late spring chill from their fingertips. Rainbow sprinkles kept sticking to her lips, and Dean found it difficult to maintain the seriousness of the conversation like that, and telling her every time it happened soon proved futile. 

“What?” she asked for the fifth time, brushing her lips off. “Jesus, I wish I liked the tractor wheel kind or something. Can’t help it, though. It’s always been rainbow sprinkles or GTFO with me.” 

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Dean said with a sage nod. He finished his second donut – jelly-filled – and cleared his throat. “Look, I know you probably have stuff of your own to do. If you wanted to go do it, I wouldn’t hold a grudge, not by a longshot.” 

“Don’t be a dummy. I didn’t have anything pressing. In fact, Dorothy’s in Oz for some negotiations, and I’m a little – this’ll keep me occupied, you know?” 

“You want to talk about it?” 

“Not in the least.” 

“Roger that.” He understood that well enough. “Shall we?” 

She hesitated, opened her mouth, closed it. 

“What?” He crossed his arms and tried to look intimidating, though he really knew better than to try that shit with her. 

“You need to tell Sam who your hired gun on this case is.” 

He knew she was right. He hated that she was right, but he knew it was the case. They had tried so many times to stop it, but it was a family tradition on both sides. Those waters ran deep. 

“Can I take the drive to think about it?” 

For a second, he was sure she would say no, but in the end, she grudgingly agreed.   
***

It wasn’t like he and Sam had stopped lying. Lying was a bedrock of social interaction. That was one of the few things hunters had in common with everybody else. No, Dean and Sam had lied to each other plenty. They lied about being okay to drive, even if they were tired or drunk. They lied about people they had slept with or wanted to sleep with. They lied about who took the last beer or who left the bathroom without replacing the last of the toilet paper or if they had booze or weed stashed somewhere. 

But they had stopped lying about doing shitty things and calling it “for the other’s own good.” They had toned their lies down, in magnitude and frequency. They had toned it all down, if Dean thought into it a little bit. They no longer felt as though the world rested entirely on them, so their lies got scaled down. 

This, though. This qualified as _back to their old tricks._ This was the kind of thing he thought they were past, and it galled him that they got dragged back down in it and the first thing he did was do something stupid and then lie about it. But what else could he do? Charlie and Sam were brilliant, and they had the whole Men of Letters library behind them, but it was no match for a crazy-ass rogue angel who could disappear into space and time in the blink of an eye. The fact was, they couldn’t do it alone. 

They were on day two of a two-day drive from Blue Earth to Paradox. Dean had still not called Sam. The previous day had been twelve hours of asphalt churning under the Impala, that endless sound beneath him like crinkling paper or a bad radio connection. Every couple hours, Charlie had texted him. 

_Did you call Sam yet?_

He looked in the rearview mirror. Her little yellow car was zooming along behind him. Dean was impressed it could keep up at all. His phone was heavy in his jacket pocket, resting against his ribcage like Castiel’s hand. He kept his eyes on the road as he took it from his pocket, brought up Sam’s number. He hovered his thumb over it. 

They always seemed to be back here, and it was never going to change unless he did it. He pushed down on the CALL button, put it on speaker, listened to the garbled ringing. 

“Any news? What’s up?” 

“Hey, Sammy.” 

“Uh-oh.” 

“No, no. It’s – look – I did something stupid, okay?” 

“Need help burying a body, stupid? Or glued your hand to your balls again, stupid?” 

“Somewhere in between,” he said, voice hitching. 

Sam heard it. Dean heard him straighten in his chair. “I’m listening.” 

He had only intended to tell Sam that he’d enlisted an unorthodox avenue of help. He didn’t mean to fire his mouth off and tell him the whole fucking thing, but there he was, telling Sam that he had called Crowley and Crowley had answered. He told him that the price was two pints of blood and that they were on their way to Aurora. Even when the story was over, Dean kept talking, because Sam was totally silent on the other end. It was a calloused silence. 

“Sammy? Come on, man. Say something.” 

“I’ll give him the blood.” 

Dean swerved a little but caught himself in time. 

“The hell you will.” 

“I will. When he finds Cas, you’ll need to be at a hundred percent. And if you’re giving him your little tribute, you won’t be at a hundred percent.” 

“Thank you,” Dean said. 

“Don’t mention it. And don’t think this is the end of this conversation.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”   
***

They coasted into Aurora later that evening, on fumes. Crowley was waiting for them at a dumpy little roadside motel, the kind that doesn’t even have a theme, just a few rows of low boxes with hard beds and flowered coverlets – all the better to hide stains. Charlie tumbled out of her car on shaking legs. Dark circles had formed under her eyes and her perennial smile had toned itself down. 

They rendezvoused between cars, looking like they were up to no good. By the looks of the neighborhood, no one would give even the remotest shit about it. 

Charlie jolted to life when she saw Crowley, her whole body perking to red alert, eyes wide and shoulders set. Dean hated that Crowley didn’t scare him. He’d reached a grudging peace so long ago that there seemed no point. He was just another freak in their network of freaks. What Dean wouldn’t give for those halcyon black-and-white days of _if it’s evil, we kill it_. He wondered what Dad would say about it – among other things that Dean had been doing over the past couple years. 

“You two look like rejects from my neck of the woods.” 

“Whatever, dude,” Dean said, rubbing his eyes. “Where is he?” 

“Well, we’re not dealing with a total amateur. It’s warded but good.”

“So give me the address. That’s all I—”

Crowley held up a hand. “Hold on there, Lone Ranger. Before you and Tonto ride off to your deaths.”

“Come on, man. It’s one crazy angel.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, and if you’d stop your suicidal bravado for two bloody seconds, I’m just dying to tell you all about it.” 

Dean crossed his arms and waited in what he hoped was a patient manner. 

“He’s got some bottom-feeder demons guarding the place. I swear, things have really – well, gone to Hell in Hell of late. These chuckleheads would be shoveling shit for room and board on my watch, but the assclowns downstairs—”

“Crowley, rein it in.” 

“Sorry. Right. Your angelic fuckpuppet. There are a few demons guarding the place. Perimeter only, one would assume, as the building itself is warded up tighter than your brother’s asshole.” 

“Gross,” Charlie whispered desperately. 

“Seconded,” Dean said. 

“Oh, whatever. We’re all adults here,” Crowley said. “Look, I promised to help find him. I can’t make too many waves downstairs, and killing a bunch of demons – shit-stains, though they may be – will attract unwanted attention. I’m going to fuck off to parts unknown now. Summon me when you’re ready to make our agreed-upon payment. And don’t make me come collecting.” 

Dean nodded. “You have my word.” 

Crowley stuck his hand out, smiled smugly at Dean. “Shake on it?” 

“I guess it’s better than making out with you,” Dean said, reaching out to shake Crowley’s hand. The demon held on far longer than was necessary, smirking as he kept eye contact. Dean tried to pull away, but Crowley tightened his grip. His hand was surprisingly warm and soft. 

“Someday.” He slipped a piece of paper into Dean’s shirt pocket and disappeared. 

“I hate that douchecanoe.” 

“And yet here you are, asking him favors and giving him blood in return.” 

“Don’t you start with me.” 

He stalked toward the registration office to check in.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean finds what he's been looking for -- but what does he find?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about dragging this out and leaving it as a cliffhanger and all like that, but I figured that would be in poor taste, considering the season finale, so I'm posting the last few chapters. Anyway, in the U.S. it's a holiday weekend, so we need something to do to avoid interacting with our families, right?

They hit the drugstore after they were all settled in. Dean’s throat went dry as he navigated the aisles on autopilot, tossing rubbing alcohol and bandages into the basket. He picked up a couple ice packs, some water. Cas wouldn’t be able to heal himself instantaneously. He’d be hurt, and Dean had hoped he would never have to see Cas like that again. It had happened too many times over the years, waning slowly. He had forgotten the fear and worry that came along with it. Would this be the time that things went too far? When something permanently damaged him? There had been so many close calls. 

The cashier frowned and raised an eyebrow at Dean’s purchases, but in the end just shrugged and rang up his order. 

Charlie waited in the Impala, tapping away on her phone, furrowing her brow, switching to her tablet. Dean tossed his purchases in the trunk, rummaged around in a hidden side pocket until he came up with a rattling bottle of pills. Sam had tweaked his back a while ago, and they had finagled an extra bottle of painkillers from the doc. 

“I brought up real-time satellite imagery on this,” Charlie said when he got back in the car. “The address Crowley gave us is good.” She tapped the screen, zoomed in on the picture, showed it to Dean. It was grainy, but he could see the tell-tale spray-painted scrawl of warding symbols all over the windows. 

“Okay. How many folks are at the party?” 

“Hard to tell,” she said, and some kind of warning seemed to hang in the air after her words. 

“Yeah? And?” 

“Maybe we should get Sam out here.” 

“That’ll be another two days. Two days of us sitting and spinning while Cas—”

“Dean, use your noodle here.” 

He smacked his hand on the steering wheel. She was right, but he didn’t care. He started the car. 

“You gonna look up directions?” 

“Dean—”

“So stay in the car. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But I can’t wait another two days.”

“I had sincerely hoped that sanity would prevail for once.” 

“You know better than that.” 

“I guess I do,” she said, pulling up directions. 

It was an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of town. The eaves and gutters hung off the house. What remained of the roof was rotted and sunken in, overgrown with leaves and foliage. It was strangely beautiful in its own way. Perhaps ten years ago, it could have been salvaged and fixed up, could have been a home for a family. Dean saw a lot of places like that. 

He parked down the road, hidden as best he could be by trees. Pulling binoculars from the glove box, he took a look at the situation. Crowley was right – the handful of demons guarding the place didn’t look like much. Redshirt cannon fodder, for sure. The place was warded, symbols mingling inconspicuously with years of bored small-town graffiti. 

It was quiet out there. No birds, no other rumble of traffic. It was more than seclusion. There wasn’t even the hum of electricity. This was stupid and dangerous. He knew it and felt it acutely in every muscle, every sense he had standing up on raw, frayed end. But it was Cas in there, Cas who had tried to make amends, tried to have a life for himself, tried and tried and tried. He didn’t deserve this. 

“Any point in asking you one more time to wait?” 

“Nope,” he said, opening the car door. 

“Well, I’m staying here. Someone’s gotta drive when you get your buns handed to you on a silver platter.” 

“You do that,” he said. 

He went around the car, pulled his demon blade and angel blade from their places among his weapons cache. For good measure, he slipped a jar of holy oil in his pocket. 

She might have called after him, might have simply fired off a litany of curses and names. He didn’t know. He was crouching along in the ditch along the side of the road, knife at the ready. He hadn’t needed it in a while, but the handle still fit so perfectly in his hand, his palm sighing in relief at the feeling of its smooth weight. 

He paused at the end of the driveway, as low and small as he could get, assessing the situation. Six demons pretended to patrol the place, but they were just sort of pacing back and forth, staring off into the distance. It really was kind of sad, in a way. Two circled around back, and he took his chance, creeping up and killing two of the remaining four straight away and with little ceremony. They didn’t see him coming; he just stuck them with the knife. The other two noticed and put up a cursory fight, but even though Dean hadn’t fought a demon in a while, he took them down with a relative ease that surprised himself. Goon patrol came back from the other side of the building and tried to charge at him, but he feinted at the last minute, getting one in the side and kicking the other off balance enough to go straight for the throat. It was a muffled sort of commotion, though he was sure that his presence had been detected by angelic ears. 

Sure enough, light flooded out of an upstairs window. He was standing off the side of the porch, a small gap leading to the space underneath it. He rolled under it just in time to cover his head with his arms. The sound of shattering glass exploded around him and the house shook. A thin sift of dust floated down, sprinkling over his hands and into his hair. He stayed put, though, until the house stopped shaking and after. 

No further sound. No creaking of floorboards, no taunting voice. It would stand to reason that this asshat was the kind to completely underestimate humans. Oh yeah, he thought Dean was dead and that was going to make his surprise all the more sweet when Dean ran him through with an angel blade. 

He crept slowly out from under the porch, and slipped in the empty doorway that led to the basement. He made slow progress through the house, stepping gingerly and ducking into emptied closets or gaping spaces where fixtures had been ripped out. Every second that passed was a second that Castiel was in pain. 

He was just at the foot of the stairs when there was a shift above him and the creaking sound of feet over rotting wood. A low rumble of a voice and then a moan – Castiel’s moan. 

Dean threw caution away entirely and charged up the stairs, angel blade drawn. His mind registered Cas, as it always did when he saw him, but he couldn’t look at him, not right now. If he did, it would all be over. He would lose his focus. 

He had a golden moment of surprise, tackling the angel. He threw Dean back against the wall, crashing through rotted plaster and landing in the next room. Dean got up and charged again, only to be tossed again, this time with a remote flick of the wrist. 

“I should have just killed you,” the angel said. 

“Yeah, probably. You ain’t the first one to make that mistake,” Dean said. He was woozy, blood and dust making a sticky paste on the side of his face. He scrambled up as best he could, even though it made the floor swim underneath him. 

The angel closed in, stomping over the shattered plaster. Dust clouds rose in his wake. He got to Dean, pulled him all the way up and off his feet, slammed him back against the wall in the next room. 

“Your filthy little whore has been even more fun to torture than I had imagined. You’d think someone who could dish out so much suffering could take a little on his own, but that is not the case,” he said. 

“Oh shut up. Boo-freaking-hoo,” Dean said, struggling against the immovable angel. “What good is it gonna do you? Do you feel better now? Did torturing him make it right?” 

His bony hand squeezed Dean’s throat. “You ignorant little worm.” 

“Whatever.”

A flash of autumn red caught his attention, but he focused as hard as he could on the angel. 

“Do you really think that the fix for all that death was to kill more? I gotta tell you, there are some serious flaws in that logic. They didn’t teach me too much about logic in my GED classes, but I am pretty sure that killing folks as payback for killing folks leads to a lot of bodies that gotta get hidden,” he said. 

The angel tightened his hand around Dean’s throat and growled. “I protected your kind. I fought demons so your kind could be safe. I followed my orders because I thought it was important. And then your little whore in there, he thought that wasn’t good enough for us. He made the decision for all of us, because we were never meant to be individuals.” 

Dean flicked his eyes to the ground. Charlie was there, angel blade in hand, just behind him. 

“Spare me, asshole,” Dean said, pulling his knee up and nailing the guy in the crotch. He loosened his grip on Dean just enough for him to weasel away and pull him down while Charlie stabbed him in the side with the angel blade. 

A flash of light and a roar of sound, both Charlie and Dean turned away and the angel was no more. The silence left in his wake was all encompassing. 

“You okay?” she asked. 

He nodded. “You?” 

And then all he could think of was Cas. Out of breath and feeling bruised all over, he scrambled up and went to where Cas was tied to a chair. The bonds had wards on them, a hard-line, arcane form of Enochian. They were made from rough-cut leather, the symbols cut into them inelegantly. Dean used the demon knife to slice them off Cas. 

His head lolled and his eyes were swollen shut; blood had gushed and caked along his hairline and down the side of his face. There was evidence that the angel had done that cute trick Crowley had once been so fond of, the one with the pins in the skull. 

“No, don’t,” Cas said. 

“Shh, it’s me and Charlie,” Dean said, lifting him as gently as he could. “I got you. We’re gonna have to walk a little bit, okay?” 

“Not okay,” Cas said. 

He laughed a shaking laugh. “It’s okay. Promise.” 

Charlie appeared on the other side of Cas, unwieldy because of the height difference but making up for it in sheer gumption. They shuffled through the house and down the stairs at an excruciating pace that left Dean’s teeth on edge. His legs wanted to go fast, wanted to run to the car and speed off back home, but that wouldn’t happen. 

Once they got Cas moving a little, it was apparent that one or both of his legs had been damaged, that his wrist was flopping around in ways it shouldn’t, that his side was bleeding. Dean swallowed hard, choked back bile and anger and tears. 

When they finally got to the car, Charlie helped lay him out in the backseat. Normally, Dean would grouse about blood on the leather interior, but not now. Dean took Cas’ jeans off – stiff with blood and dust – and looked at his legs. They were badly bruised, but probably not broken. He’d be in pain until he could heal himself, but it could have been far worse. His wrists were in bad shape, oozing blood between scabs that had already crusted over with yellow fluid. 

It had been a long time since any of them had had injuries like this. There was the occasional sprained wrist or cracked rib, bruises and scrapes. Nothing like this. 

Dean cleared his throat, wiped his face. Christ, a shower would make him feel like a completely new man at this point. 

“He’ll be fine,” Charlie said, her voice taking on the powdered whisper of a hospital hallway. No hospitals for the likes of them, though. 

“I know.” He took a bandana from somewhere in the recesses of his jacket, wiped Cas’ face. It looked far less terrifying with even a little blood wiped away. 

Charlie wrapped gauze around his wrist, secured it gently. He groaned a little, tried to bat at her. “Hey, no, it’s me. It’s Charlie.” 

“Charlie?” 

“Yeah, that’s right. Yeah,” she said. 

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I should know better by now. I should never have called you.” 

“There will be none of that,” she said in her best mom voice. “You needed help.”

“I know, but—”

“Dean, give it a rest, okay? I came, I helped you, I put up with your shit. Send me a cookie bouquet or something. But don’t do the tortured angsty thing. You’re forty, for chrissakes.” 

He swallowed his smile, nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” 

When they had Cas cleaned up and okay enough to move, they drove back to the motel. He flailed the whole way and mumbled nonsense, but Charlie climbed over the seat and sat with him, on the floor, tucked in the space between the front seat and the back seat. That was something Sam couldn’t do, that was for sure. She held his hand and mumbled soothing things to him. 

Back at the motel, they carted him into the room. There was a guy in the parking lot and he gave them a skeptical look but wisely did not ask questions. It wasn’t like they were pulling up into the valet at the Hyatt; this wasn’t the kind of place where asking questions was advisable. 

They took turns getting cleaned up, the other watching Cas while one showered. It had been a long few days that Dean couldn’t even fully comprehend yet. He nearly fell over in the shower, the exhaustion of it all catching up to him. 

He texted Sam, let him know Cas was okay. Sam texted back, _good. but don’t think you’re off the hook re: crowley._ Dean wouldn’t dream of it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the bunker, Dean asks himself what's really important to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you are. Thank you. I can't stop saying it. Thank you. It's like having the hiccups. Thank you.

Cas woke in the middle of the night, thrashing. Dean hadn’t been even close to sleeping, had spent the hours between Cas’ rescue and now either pacing the confines of the motel room or sitting on the edge of the bed. He rushed to Cas’ side, turned on a light, tried to soothe him with a comforting hand on his forehead and a murmured _shh shh, I’ve got you._

The bruises had already begun to fade, the cuts looking more like thorn scratches than the deep gashes they had been just a few hours before. Still, once Cas opened his eyes, Dean saw how haunted he looked and knew the bruises were the least of his injuries. 

“You guys okay?” Charlie mumbled from the other bed. She sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

“I think so,” Dean said. 

Cas woke up fully, eyes focused but still fearful. “Dean, is that really you?” 

“Yeah, man, it’s really me,” he said, voice breaking.

There was the vague rustle of sheets as Charlie got up, went to the bathroom, came out with a glass of water. She handed it to Dean, who tipped it to Cas’ parched lips. He drank for a second, trembling, before shaking his head. Charlie sat at the edge of the bed. 

“Charlie?” 

“The one and only,” she said with a weak smile. 

“I didn’t think you’d find me. I thought—”

“Well, we did, and that’s what matters,” Dean said. “So don’t even think about it, okay? You need to get better. Just think about that, okay?” He took Cas’ hand, put it to his lips. It still smelled like blood and that old house, that old wooden smell. 

“Yeah, okay,” Cas said, drifting off again. 

Dean sat there and watched him as he slept, or whatever injured angels did. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and steady. He looked so achingly fragile and human. 

“He’ll be okay,” Charlie assured him. 

“Will he? Will any of us?” 

She stood up, got in close and wrapped her arms around Dean’s shoulder, kissed him softly on the top of his head, her vivid hair falling all over him. “Yeah, we will. We’re tough, remember? Now, get some sleep.” 

She went back to her own bed, burrowed deep in the covers. 

Dean ditched his jeans and his overshirts, leaving himself in only boxer-briefs and a t-shirt. He slipped into bed with Cas, pulled him close and held him as tight as he dared, avoiding injuries as best he could. There was something too soft about Cas. Probably his imagination, but he felt like an overripe banana in Dean’s arms. 

The next morning, Cas was more alert, able to hobble around the motel room a little bit. Dean decided he was okay to transport, wanted to get him home as soon as possible. It was tempting to avoid Sam’s questioning and scolding, to hit the road for a while, but he knew Sam would only come looking for him and track him down, which would lead to more lectures. Home meant comfortable beds, food, a place to convalesce without the smell of other people. 

Charlie tagged along, saying she wanted some time with the Men of Letters’ books. Dean knew she wanted to help, but he didn’t say anything. Their lives, after all, ran along the polite fiction that the Winchesters never needed any help, under any circumstance – and its attendant polite fiction that this was total bullshit. 

Cas curled up in the passenger seat in a drugged haze. Dean tried to pad him as much as possible, stealing a pillow from the motel room and wrapping Cas in the blankets he had in the back of the Impala. Still, he glanced over at Cas every time the road got too bumpy or if he made any kind of noise. 

It was a twelve-hour drive that they did in ten; when they pulled up in front of the bunker, Charlie stumbled out of the car and immediately threw up in the gravel. 

“You okay, buddy?” 

“Fine. Fine. Just need a ginger ale,” she said, still bent over. 

“It’s funny because – never mind.” 

She glowered at him, spit on the ground, and went around to the passenger side of the Impala, helping Cas out of the car. 

Sam met them inside the door, shooed Charlie away, helped Dean carry Cas into the bedroom. They got him into pajamas, tucked him into bed. 

“You go sleep. I’ll watch him,” Sam said. 

Dean hovered over Cas. “But—”

“Dean,” he said, warning. 

“I’m not tired. I’m too keyed-up. I won’t sleep.” 

“That’s not a convincing argument. Go find a spare room and fucking sleep, jerk.” 

“I’ll just go find some saltines or something,” Charlie said, excusing herself from the fray. 

Sam and Dean continued to square off across the bed, arguing as only brothers can, until Cas raised his arm, and gestured for Dean to come closer. Dean did, sitting, leaning in. 

“Go sleep,” Cas whispered.  
***  
Cas slept for almost two days, during which Dean cleaned almost the whole bunker. He swept and mopped the library, dusted the shelves, took vinegar-spritzed newspaper to the glass cases that held weaponry and manuscripts. He spruced up their game room, dusting off the TV. Charlie came in and asked if he needed help, so he had her strip the covers off the pillows and throw them in the wash. 

Sam came in and out from work, pausing in the doorway of whatever room he found Dean in, mouth open and ready to say something but never quite getting there. 

When he wasn’t cleaning, he was sitting by Cas’ bed, holding his hand or stroking his face. He would have prayed if he didn’t know how dangerous it was. 

Cas healed as he slept, the bruises fading in a time-lapse until they were just purple stains on his face and legs and torso. 

In those two days, sitting there by Cas’ side, all Dean could ask himself was _is any of this even worth it?_ He’d asked himself that before, and always he had pressed on, though he never understood why. Bone-tired and running on fumes, he’d never stopped long enough to really think about it. Until the past couple years. Until there was a home to come back to, someone other than Sam to live for. 

If John Winchester were alive, he’d tell Dean, hell yes it’s worth it, and you’re gonna keep on doing it until you die. But Dad had died almost fifteen years ago in sulfur and gunpowder. He hadn’t made the world a better place, hadn’t done right by Sam or Dean. If he had lived, he wouldn’t be happy for Dean that he found someone worth holding onto. Even after all these years, it was hard for Dean to admit that his dad was wrong and didn’t know everything, but in that quiet, secret place within him, he knew that was exactly the case. 

***

Cas woke with the slow creeping insistence of melting ice cream. First his legs and arms twitched a little, then his eyes fluttered open, and then he was taking in his surroundings. Dean watched all this with silent, aching disbelief, sure that his grief and tension had made him hallucinate. But then Cas reached out and squeezed his hand. 

“Hello, Dean,” he said, his voice that same rough ball of electricity Dean remembered from that broken-down barn ten years prior. 

He didn’t bother trying to stop the tears that dripped from his eyes, one by one. He took Cas’ hand and pressed it to his lips, his cheek. Cas’ fingers brushed his face gently and he grimace-smiled. 

“It is so good to see your beautiful blues, man.” 

“What happened to Jehoel?” 

“We took care of him.” 

“Dammit,” Cas said, shaking his head. 

“We had to.” 

“I know. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting.” 

Dean knew it would be hypocritical of him to question why Cas still clung so tightly to his family. Even so, he wondered to himself. He and Sam had done some awful things to one another, but nothing approaching the scale or magnitude of what the angels had wrought upon Cas over the years. 

“I’m sorry. He – he—”

“I remember. I remember what he did.” 

He knew Cas suffered at times like this, but he didn’t know how to ask what he needed. Cas was still an angel himself, after all. He had spent millennia fighting and getting hurt. But Dean knew that he himself felt every loss and failure – wouldn’t it be the same for Cas? 

“So how did you find me?” 

Dean cleared his throat, straightened in his seat. “Called in a favor.” 

“To whom?” 

“Does it matter? It got you rescued, didn’t it?” 

“Dean.” 

“It was Crowley,” he muttered, suddenly interested in the fraying tag on his pillow. 

Cas rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I’d lecture you, but I cashed in one of those chips once myself.” 

“A Winchester through-and-through,” Dean said, shaking his head. 

Cas hummed a low, soft affirmation of that, and sat up in bed. He was still slow and shaky, taking a deep breath as he did it. Dean propped him up with the pillows, smoothed down his hair. 

“You still owe me a blow job,” Dean said. 

Cas laughed, coughing a little as he did so. “As soon as I feel less like I’ve been squeezed through a tube of toothpaste, I’ll get right on that.” 

“You had me worried there,” Dean said. “That angel – he was pretty pissed. I didn’t know what I was gonna find.” 

“You know what’s funny? Or strange? Something. Anyway, I knew I would get out of it.” 

Dean didn’t want to rain on his parade or sound like he didn’t believe in Cas, so he kept his mouth shut, instead said, “And here you always say you lost your faith.” 

Cas batted at him ineffectually. “Could we go for a walk or something? I feel . . . what is it? Antsy.” 

“You sure you’re up for it?” 

Cas nodded, and Dean helped him up. They wrangled him into a pair of jeans and some shoes, started a slow stroll out of the bedroom and through the bunker. Sam was at work and Charlie was at the grocery store, leaving the building scarcely echoing with the soft hum of electricity and Cas’ shuffling steps. Dean was grateful for the solitude. He wanted the moment to be him and Cas and no one else, not even Charlie and Sam. 

Outside, the sun was high and bright, the sky a clear blue so rich it seemed like just one solid color as far as he could see. The air was warm, humid, that first delicate part of summer before discomfort overtook. Everything around the bunker was bright and saturated with water, color, warmth. The wildflowers along the road and their stalks popped in purple, yellow, and green. The leaves on the trees looked wet and plump. Even the bunker, with its imposing brass and stone façade, looked pleasant. 

Cas leaned heavily on him as they walked, his arm around Dean’s waist and his fingertips digging into the soft flesh at Dean’s sides, which he would normally grouse about, as he didn’t entirely like to be reminded that he was getting older and softer as the years went on. This was a special case, though, so he let Cas’ fingers grip him hard. 

“I been thinking,” Dean said, squinting into the sun. 

“Uh-oh,” Cas said. 

“Quiet, you. No, I been thinking that it might be a good time to take a break. Maybe – maybe I could pick up a job here, something longer term. Or, hell, we could go on vacation. See the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Graceland. Dollywood. The world’s our oyster, right?” He tried to laugh, but it made that desperate sobbing sound, hitching in his throat. 

“Dean, you know by now that I would stay with you whatever you did.” 

“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.” 

“Sort of. Just, I know what hunting means to you.” 

“Maybe it doesn’t mean the same thing it used to. Maybe I found something that means more.” His heart pounded as he thought of Lisa, thought of how good things were with her for that whole year, and how he dropped her so quickly the minute he knew Sam was back. How he dropped Ben. How the life found them, even so. 

They had meandered to the end of the road, a little baby hill covered in pinkish clover and soft green grass. Cas looked up at it like it was Mount McKinley, sighed, and settled for sitting down at the base of it, resting his back against the gentle slope. He winced as he found a better position. Dean sat there next to him, staring down at him, sure that he would disappear into the air like smoke in the breeze. 

“Jahoel laid a trap for us, and we didn’t see it. I don’t know if there was a way for us to see it. I keep asking myself if this would have happened five years ago, if we would have fallen for it then. And I can’t come up with an answer.” 

Dean swallowed hard and nodded. “I don’t know either.” 

Cas reached up and put his hand on Dean’s knee, fixed that gaze on him that saw straight through Dean. He knew when Cas did this, he was seeing Dean’s soul, and it never failed to make him feel uncomfortable and too scrutinized. He shifted a little, careful to let Cas’ hand remain where it was, shifted only to work out the nervous energy that Cas’ scrutiny filled him with. 

He’d always believed that the world was worth fighting for, worth saving. He still believed it. But he didn’t believe that it was up to him. Chrissy was doing a damn fine job; Charlie held her own. There were people out there taking up the sword. He had put his time in. He’d given any good years he might have had to the life. Cas’ talk of his immortal, never-aging soul notwithstanding, he only had a few years left on this earth in this body. 

There was the sound of a car in the distance. Dean craned his neck, saw Charlie’s little sunshine mobile trundling down the road, growling like an angry kitten. He rose, helped Cas up, and they started the slow walk back to the bunker. He was thinking it might be a good night to make some burgers, sit around, drink some whiskey.


End file.
